Rectify

Rectify, Ep. 3.06, “The Source”

The definitive image of Rectify’s tremendous third season finale “The Source” comes almost as an afterthought; while walking to his mother’s car outside Amantha’s house, Daniel looks forward, put his arms in the air, and takes a leap off the sidewalk onto the asphalt of the parking lot.

Rectify, Ep. 3.05, “The Future”

Hope is a weird thing, particularly on Rectify – as an intelligent commenter posited last week, it can even be hard to see the hope in Rectify, in either its lightest or darkest moments. But there’s an argument to be made that “The Future” is the most hopeful episode the show’s ever produced Rather than exist in the abstractions of salvation Daniel and Tawney talk about early in the show’s run, “The Future” presents the idea of forward progress in very tangible, defined ways: Daniel is not a suspect in the investigation around George’s death, and Janet makes some important steps to heal the relationship between her and the men she loves (even Lester, her deceased first husband) .Even on the most abstract of levels, “The Future” appears to be looking forward to the promise of the future, its uncertainties offering comfort rather than stress – at least in the case of Daniel, that is.

Rectify, Ep. 3.04, “Girl Jesus”

“What will I be when they put me back together again?” Daniel asks his sister during “Girl Jesus”, a thinly-veiled reference to the infamous, egg-starring nursery rhyme. Yet it’s a question that permeates every corner of Rectify’s third season, which has lifted Pawnee from any sense of temporal reality, observing the town and its people as if frozen in time inside a snow globe. Shaking said globe is Daggett, of course, trying to loosen the bits and pieces of truth surrounding George Milton’s death – and as the facts, rumors, emotions, and preconceptions fill the air of Rectify’s purgatorial setting, “Girl Jesus” begins to show characters fighting against the stasis of their lives, all looking for the unfamiliar, “more crooked path” to inner peace Amantha speaks of when having lunch with Jon.

Rectify, Ep. 3.03, “Sown with Salt”

It’s no surprise one of Daniel’s dream destinations is the land of Carthage in Tunisia, home of the Carthagian empire that fell to the Romans in 146 BC. When their lands were stripped and the Carthagian people were enslaved, legends said the Romans “salted the earth” of Carthage, cursing the land for re-inhabitation by the Carthagians or any others.

Rectify, Ep 3.02, “Thrill Ride”

The trains of change are a-comin’ to Paulie, yet the Holden clan continues to hold on, if only for a little bit longer (cue music). The mindset of everyone, from Janet to Teddy, is best summed up when Daniel finds himself alone in the house; “What do I do… what do I do, what do I do”, oscillating between pretending everything is normal and trying to sidestep their darker sides.

Rectify, Ep. 3.01, “Hoorah”

What the honorable Senator was trying to say was “All good things must come to an end”, in reference to the casual affair he once had with Marcy, waitress at the local Paulie diner.

Rectify, Ep. 2.08 to 2.10 pushes characters to the brink of isolation

There’s nothing more important than family on Rectify—and I’m not just talking about Daniel Holden, or even the Holden family in general. The closing episodes of Rectify’s haunting, beautiful second season are all about breaking down the various families of Paulie, be it the Holdens, the Willis’s, or even something more abstract, like the law enforcement characters, or the general population of Paulie.

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